I feel like I've complained about Tim's email situation in Gotham Knights before (edit: I have), but the truth of it is just so funny.
He's signed up for so many podcasts, video game streamers, and random news alerts; it's just a constant barrage of data going straight into his constantly whirring brain. Hell, he even floats the idea of the Batfamily having their own podcast as a way to correct misinformation about them (which Jason shoots down instantly), and it's made me realize something.
Timothy Drake would be a YouTuber.
In this universe specifically, Timothy Jackson Drake, the heir to Drake Industries and the foster son of the late Bruce Wayne would be a YouTuber.
Think about it. It'd be the perfect cover. Who would ever suspect that some 16-year-old nepo baby with a YouTube channel could ever be Red Robin? You'd have to be mad. I mean, look at him.
Red Robin just dropped out of literal thin air and garotted someone four times his size, and you expect anyone to believe that's the same kid who does 24-hour Minecraft charity streams and occasionally drops 6-hour video essays (his last one was on Lex Luthor's illegal bit mining operation on the moon)?
Nico referring to his mom as "Mama" implies he most likely at least used to refer to Hades as "Papa" and i 100% headcanon he still does but mostly in the manner of him having the entire Underworld wrapped around his finger for being the baby of the family
Danny, after going on a walk through the Ghost Zone, comes across a very friendly couple who quasi-adopt him.
They're super cool, too!
They used to be a part of a traveling circus, and they know how to do all sorts of neat tricks and flips and they teach him how to do them too!
Honestly, with their help his flying becomes next level; they forced him to obey gravity long enough to learn how to ignore it without using his abilities, and as such he gets a greater understanding of how to maneuver through it.
So when his Freshman class goes to Gotham on a field trip (scare tactic to prevent them from becoming drop outs because "oh if you drop out you'll resort to being a thug and you'll be trapped in this cursed city foreverrrrrr ooooooooo~") Danny decides to show off to Sam and Tucker in a small park.
He does a quadruple flip off of a wall he ran up.
Barbara stares in disbelief through her cameras.
That.
That shouldn't be possible?
She calls Dick to ask if he had any siblings or cousins he wasn't aware of.
You know how in some ghost stories sometimes its not a person or a land that's haunted but the items?
Well what if, when looking for a mother's day gift for his mom, Danny is looking around a pawn shop and finds a necklace, it's missing some pearls but it's just enough to pass off as a decent gift. Danny humms but decides against it and goes to leave it....
That was until he gasped out blue frost and spots a ghostly woman appear out of the necklace with a somber smile. She isn't as seeable as the other ghosts in Amity though, meaning she doesn't have enough ectoplasm on her own (that might change the longer she's in Amity and around Danny though) and that right now only Danny can see her.
And Danny well... hes been doing his hero gig for a bit now, might go and ask if there was anything he can do to help.
And later Danny's good deed... bites him back. Oh boy. Because now he has the Bats looking into Amity Park... Wait what do you mean Martha is now strong enough to be seen?!
Valerie's strain of sanity was this, this close to SNAP it. She was at the end of her rope here and it showed. Well, it would show if she took off her mask, letting lose her limp hair and revealing her dark eyebags but she couldn't because she was fighting what-was-his-name, oh right, Skulker.
Skulker, who was demanding to know what had the ghost hunters done with Phantom.
After Phantom's sudden disappearance, it had felt like a blessing. One less ghost scum, the better right? Wrong. She would rather die than admit it but she had underestimated the amount of ghosts Phantom took care of on the daily basic.
The Fenton parents and GIW were no match to those of greater powers, such as Vortex and Undergrowth and she was certain by now they looked no different from her.
Wary. Exhausted. Defeated.
Amity Parkers or at least, the adult ones, hypocritic as they were, had gone from disparaging and objecting to pleading for Phantom's return. Even the ghosts were wondering where was their mysterious ghost boy.
Mayor Masters was also under dark clouds after receiving the citizen's complaints and having to deal with the damages that ranged up to millions of dollars.
At this point, everyone was begging for Phantom to come back from wherever he was.
"Guys!" a voice shouted and she turned, only to see Sidney Poindexter, floating besides them and waving a glowing paper, "It's from Phantom's!"
Just like that, seemingly every human and ghost came out of the bush to know what was the latest news. It didn't get better:
Dear ghosts and Amity Park I guess,
This is from Phantom. I regret, well, not really, to say that having been married into another ghost belongs to another city, I won't be returning to Amity Park anytime soon.
Thankfully never have to deal with you guys anymore,
YOLO,
Phantom
What the fuck.
Or: when a ghost (or half-ghost) marries to a ghost in another city, they basically forfeit their rights to their old home and any businesses going on in their old home is none of their businesses.
In another news, Danny Fenton had been going on romantic rendezvous with a Jason Todd in Gotham City.
Danny had no idea what a meta was, but appearently he had something called a meta-gene. One would think a mutation that can cause people to manifest superpowers from lab accidents would explain his disastrous career as a superhero, but they would be wrong. Dannys meta gene was never activated and the whole ghost fiasco was just eldrich shenanigans at its finest.
No, Danny's meta gene activated just two weeks ago on his fifteenth birthday where he was celebrating at Sam's place with Tucker. They had gotten into one of thier usual fights about food and Danny just did not want to deal with it and went into another room.
Sams cat didn't love him per say but it usually didn't hate him either. Today was not his lucky day. The kitty scratched him and wouldn't you know? His meta gene wasn't activated by an interdimentional portal opening up on top of him, it wasn't activated by the numerous energy blasts he had been hit with nor the various electric shocks.
No, it was activated by a freaking cat scratch.
He stared at himself in the mirror, glowing green eyes with slit pupils stared back at him. His kitty ears were folded back to show his shock and displeasure over the situation but it was still rather obvious what they were. The tail wagging slowly behind him was the same snowy white as his hair and ears.
He looked like Phantom. He looked like Phanton as Fenton. Ancients. There was no way he was going to be able to hide this. Transforming brought about no change other than the hazmat suit. He was so screwed. He couldn't go home like this.
Breathing heavily and on the verge of a panic attack he called Jazz once, twice, three times, but she didn't pick up. Danny knew he couldn't stay in the human world, it was too dangerous.
But if he wasn't there to protect the ghosts than it would be too dangerous for them to stay too. He knew for a fact Dani was staying with Dora while she taught her how to read and write so he had pretty much no qualms about destroying the portals and outing Vlad through a pre-made video of him transforming and boasting about his crimes to Phantom, courtesy of Tucker and him filming it all.
He felt bad about ditching his friends one last time, and at his own birthday party no less! But he knew if he tried to say goodbye they would guilt him into staying and it would end horribly so he left a note explaining what happened and bounced.
Destroying the portals hadn't taken much time or effort nor did destroying over 20 years of research between the three. It was exploring the Ghost Zone that was giving him problems. He was always warned by Wulf not to open portals in the Ghost Zone unless you were very experienced cause if you screw up theres no telling when or where you will land. He thought back to Wulfs lessons and tried to conjure the image of lush wildlife and abundant food.
The place he ended up portaling to had neither of those things. In fact if felt like the opposite when he landed in a grimey alleyway in the dark of night.
A spotlight was pointed toward the sky, painting the clouds above in a yellow light holding a stylized image of a bat in the center. Danny wondered what that was about for only a minute before he heard the tell tale whoosh sound of someone landing in the alley behind him.
Dannys new instincts reacted before the logical part of his brain took hold causing him to whirl around with his ears flattened to his head and he hissed so furiously that the man with the red helmet (mask?) back up several paces while cursing furiously. The man also mentioned something about a "Pit" but Danny wasn't paying attention, he was scared out of his mind and bolted down the alleyways and out of sight before phasing into a dilapidated building and hiding under some rubble.
Later, Red Hood told Nightwing about the Lazarus Pit catboy demon and described it as nightmarish as possible before adding that it was kinda twinkish. He also added "for the love of God dickwing, don't let demon brat adopt that thing"
In Damians defence, he found Danny asleep next to Alfred the cat in Batcows barn and just decided he was thier new cat. In other news hes far more concerned with hiding Danny From Catwoman than from father.
Years had passed since Wally's death. Years since the Young Justice team had split up because of it, none of them could move on, as much as they liked to pretend about it, Nightwing was the one who had taken it the worst.
While the years passed on the hero's dimension, Danny was exploring Clockwork's haunt in the Infinite Realms, something that took him a long time as his mentor was hard to convince; while he was at it he found something strange. Clocky had told him it was the "Speedforce" although the halfa had no idea what that meant. He frowned wanting to explore it but his mentor stopped him every time, telling him it wasn't safe.
Unfortunately that wasn't enough to stop the teenager, who slipped into the crack in time. Danny was quite lucky, as the watch that had merged with him long ago from the "Dark Dan" incident had left him somewhat immune to the effects the site had, not that he knew it.
When he stepped inside, all he saw was an incomprehensible place. Since he wasn't seeing something interesting he was about to leave when he noticed a boy in a weird suit running. He raised an eyebrow in confusion, didn't Clocky tell him the place was off limits?
The boy noticed him too and explained in panic that the place was dangerous and could kill him. To which Danny rolled his eyes.
"I don't think you can kill something dead" he scoffed showing his ghostly tail. The boy didn't take that revelation very well, as he started muttering about being dead and in the afterlife. Danny, seeing that the boy had gotten distracted and stopped running, pulled him out of the place and guided him towards Clockwork's haunt. He had to ask his mentor about the weird kid and the best way was well, kidnap him from the strange place.
Both ghosts watched the speedster (Wally?) continue to mumble about having passed into the afterlife while having an existential crisis on the couch. Danny was tempted to tell him he was alive and everything was a misunderstanding but he had to get information first. And maybe get him back home if it was all a mistake.
Danny blinked at the small children Ellie was holding the hand of, looking quite proud of herself. The small children- between ten and twelve so somewhere similar to Ellie’s age- who both practically stank of magic and Gods.
He took a deep breath, pinching the bridge of his nose even as Dan cackled while opening the door more to let them inside. “Alright, what’s your name, kids?”
“B-billy…um, Billy Batson...”
“‘m Percy! Percy Jackson.”
“Nice to meet you two- any idea where in your family you have a god or two, because one of you definitely smells like Zeus and I’m pretty sure Poseidon and I am not dealing with either of my half-brothers.”
Jason, after coming back to Gotham and taking over the criminal underworld— is burnt out.
He’s exhausted, he can’t sleep, he’s pretty sure he broke some ribs somewhere along the two month mark of being the Red Hood and he just wants to go home.
So he does, entering the Cave near deliriously while Batman and Robin are out on patrol, shattering the stupid memorial he comes across while he’s at it, and— huh, well, that actually looks like a pretty comfy spot to take a nap. He’s just gonna— one minute. He just needs one… minute…..
When Bruce and Tim return to the Cave it’s to a dead boy passed out in the shattered remains of the memorial case, wrapped up in the tattered cape Bruce pulled from the rubble in Ethiopia.
tales of the passerine - danny fenton being bruce wayne's first kid
okay okay. so this is like a continuation/elaboration of my oneshot/prompt i wrote about the idea that Danny was the first batkid. We have a lot of aus where he joins the family after the rest of the bats do, right? So hey! Lets shake things up a bit. Danny is the first to be adopted by Bruce Wayne.
Danny's parents and unfortunately Jazz die shortly after the events of TUE -- how so? I was gonna say an ecto-filter explosion, that would call back to the TUE explosion and trauma behind that. But lets do something new! Carbon-monoxide poisoning.
It's not too unexpected for something to break in the Fenton house, especially with the Fenton parents' questionable understanding of proper weapon handling and lab safety. The water heater broke from a stray shot by one of the weapons, and was promptly MacGyver'd incorrectly. Danny went to stay with Tucker for a guys' night, and came back to a dead silent house.
(Danny's neighbors got a very unfortunate shock when he ran to the next house over in hysterics.)
There was a lot of shuffling around with CPS, the police. People had to be called in to handle the equipment in the lab, and the GIW was rumoring to show up in aid to clearing the scene. When Danny heard of that, he immediately went and dismantled the ghost portal to the best of his abilities. He burned the physical blueprints of all his parents' inventions, their blueprints on the ghost portal, and their most dangerous weapons were destroyed beyond recognition. Anything to prevent the GIW from getting their hands on his parents' tech.
It opened up another investigation, but he was not under the list of suspects. He was placed in the care of Vlad Masters, where they then went back to the rebuilt castle mansion in Wisconsin. Danny, terrified of the future that has once passed and may do so again, shuts down in his grief. Inadvertently, he ends up somewhat repressing his ghost half. Something Vlad, who is grieving Madeline but relishing in Jack's demise and his custody of Daniel, is not very happy with.
Vlad's... gone into a bit of a mental health spiral. He's becoming increasingly possessive over Daniel, the final remnants of his friends and a liminal being like him. He doesn't like that Danny's repressing his ghost half -- both out of genuine concern as a ghost, but also because of his desire to control Danny and groom him into the perfect son. If you ever had a phase where you read Dark SBI found family fics, first off; me too bro, and second off; those are the vibes I'm thinking of.
Danny's mentally shut down from grief! And fear. He's dropped into a bad depressive state -- paralyzed with grief and the terror of the inevitable. Clockwork saved his parents because he believes in second chances, but what's the point of that when his family ended up dead anyways? Danny doesn't wanna believe that he's destined to become evil, and he's holding out onto that hope, but it's a thin line, and he feels utterly hopeless and trapped. He hasn't used his powers or ghost form since he trashed the lab, and Vlad has alarms set up to prevent him from trying to escape.
He's also unintentionally cut off Sam and Tucker -- both of whom are so scared and concerned for Danny too, and are trying their damndest to reach out to him. He keeps ignoring their texts. Danny basically haunts Vlad's manor. He goes out to eat if he has to, attends parties Vlad drags him to, and stays in his room all day if he can.
At parties, Vlad doesn't allow Danny to leave his side, or really talk to anyone -- not that Danny wants to. A product of Vlad's increasing possessiveness. Well, he almost doesn't let Danny leave his side. Danny has a habit of slipping off to hide somewhere for the parties whenever he can, and Vlad reluctantly allows it so long as he stays alone.
This becomes an advantage when eventually, Bruce Wayne returns to Gotham after missing for years, and holds a bright charity ball to celebrate the return. Vlad has been chomping at the bits to get his hands on Wayne Industries, and with the return of its owner there is no better opportunity to wipe out his rival. He goes, and he as normal, brings Daniel with him.
Vlad thinks Wayne will bleed his little heart out for Daniel's poor orphan sob story -- he's a fellow orphan himself, after all. He's not wrong; Wayne's little heart will bleed, just not in the way that benefits him.
Bruce sees Vlad and Danny approaching before they're even close enough to introduce themselves - and like with many of the children he will soon come to care for, it's like someone set a mirror into the past right in front of him.
Danny Fenton's suit is tailor-made for him, and despite the fact that it's his perfect size, the sag in his shoulders, the ducked down head, and the way he hunches into himself all pictures the image of a child in shoes too big for him. There's a far away, glazed over look in his eyes and grief marble-cut into the lines of his face. There's not enough makeup in the world that will hide the dark circles under his eyes.
("My nephew, Daniel Fenton." Vlad's hands are possessive on Danny's shoulders. Bruce immediately notices the way the boy tenses under his touch. "His parents passed recently, and as his godfather I was designated his guardian.")
("I'm so sorry, the loss must've been terrible.")
("Yes, carbon-monoxide poisoning caused it. Daniel was out with friends, when he came home... they had already passed.")
(Bruce immediately dislikes that Vlad shared the details of their death unprompted -- he likes it even less when Danny flinches at the reminder and hunches into himself.)
Danny runs off at some point earlier into the charity. At this point, parties are still being held at Wayne Manor (because iirc google search mentioned that was a thing at first before it was changed), so he disappears and hides in one of the empty rooms nearby. It just so happens to be the same room Bruce Wayne hides in when he needs a break from all of the socialization.
Thus begins a long, long process of trust. Bruce can't reveal his hand as being smarter than he looks, but he can be compassionate. Kindness needs no measure of intelligence. He keeps Danny company for as long as he can before he runs the risk of being found.
Rinse and repeat. Vlad insistently wants Wayne Industries, and he'll go to as many Wayne parties as he can to get his hooks into the man. The problem is that Bruce Wayne is never alone, and getting him alone is impossible. Finding him too. It's like the man never stops moving. Always talking to someone, always circling somewhere. He orbits around the room as if he isn't the sun of the Gotham Elite's solar system.
Danny's had such repetitive behavior that Vlad never thinks to believe that Bruce Wayne is disappearing to go talk to him. That "Vlad's" son is even interacting with him at all. Danny never gives him a reason to think so, and neither does Bruce.
Danny doesn't actually acknowledge Bruce until a handful of parties in, where he hands Bruce a small slip of paper he smuggled in that says; "don't trust Vlad". Danny's face stays carefully blank, but he's so tense that his hands are trembling, and he's purposely looking away from him. Bruce plasters a smile onto his face, slips the paper into his pocket, and tells him "okay".
(he's been busy with his own goals with the mafia, but he sets aside time to investigate Vlad Masters. He was holding off. Until now.)
Danny does eventually start speaking to Bruce, he's starting to really like the guy. He's starting to see a little hope, even as Vlad is starting to get more and more agitated with him the more he refuses to use his powers.
He reaches out to Sam and Tucker again, and starts trying to reconnect with them. Vlad has spyware on his phone, and he limits the amount of times he can talk to them. A weird parental control lock of some sort that leaves a time limit on how long he can talk to them for. 30 minutes. Danny doesn't tell them anything about Mr. Wayne.
Danny, slowly, wants out of here, and he's slowly gathering the motivation to do it. Vlad is genuinely scaring him -- and Danny wonders just how truthful the past-future Vlad was when he told him that Danny wanted his ghost half separate. He starts trying to come up with an escape plan.
Vlad has anti-ghost wards everywhere around the mansion, and while they're always on, they boost to full power at sunset. The doors and windows are always locked, all main exits have alarms set on them. The only reason it's not super extensive is because Danny hasn't tried leaving at all yet, so Vlad hasn't had to tighten anything.
At night, Vlad locks the door to his room and puts up an anti-ghost ward around the room. The mansion is on the outside westward side of Madison, more entrenched in rural Wisconsin. The closest town is a four-way stop sign with one house on three corners, and an open bar on the fourth. Not much to go.
He refuses to go to Sam and Tucker; Vlad would look there first. It's too dangerous. Vlad would sound alarm bells and have a manhunt looking for him, Danny can't risk going just anywhere. Too much risk of being found, sold out, or caught. There's really nowhere for him to hide.
Until there is. Bruce is telling Danny about the history of Wayne Manor, and says, as casually as saying the weather; "The manor has dozens of empty rooms, I'm sure Alfred wouldn't mind filling another one if he could." And quietly, hesitantly, Bruce places a careful hand on Danny's shoulder, unrestrictive and gentle; "He wouldn't mind getting one ready for you if you need one."
And there it is. There's his out.
Danny, just as quietly, replies; "I'll keep that in mind."
The ball starts rolling.
Now I've been trying to summarize this au as much as possible for length convenience, but Vlad has been steadily growing more and more controlling. More emotionally manipulative. More agitated at Danny for not using his powers.
He wants Wayne Industries under his thumb but he's been steadily growing more and more concerned with Danny. He's started grabbing him, yanking him around, shaking him; trying to goad him into using his powers. He gets angry when Danny doesn't react, or tells him he doesn't want to use his powers. He hasn't outright attacked him, but he's getting there. This has been happening over the time it takes for Bruce to indirectly offer Danny sanctuary at his home.
It all comes to a head when Vlad stops going to parties at all -- something Danny has to pretend he isn't upset about -- because Vlad doesn't want him around other people anymore. Vlad rarely goes now without him, and only leaves to go to a Wayne function or to handle something at VladCo.
Danny can't wait for Vlad to leave long enough to escape. So he leaves during the night of a big storm. Vlad's locked him in his room, but Danny doesn't bother trying to go for it; he goes to the alarmed window instead. Danny's been repressing his ghost half so long that he can't access his powers immediately anymore -- he can feel it, he knows its there, but he can't quite reach it.
He breaks the lock by hand.
Immediately the alarm goes off through the entire castle, filling the room with red, and he scrambles for the rope the Wisconsin Ghost left for him a few months back. Danny's already out and climbing down the side of the castle before Vlad even reaches his door -- the only good thing about the entire room being ghost-proof is that Vlad can't get in that way.
The rope ends before it reaches the bottom, and he's still twenty feet in the air. It won't kill him if he lands it right. Danny takes his chances, and drops. He breaks his ankle, but he survives.
And he fucking books it to the back garden. He hears Vlad shrieking over the thunder and rain.
I'll save the full experience for a future oneshot, but Danny makes it out into the nearby woods and forcibly experiences what it's like to be in a horror game, trying to hide from the thing that's hunting you. There's only one thing going through his mind; "i'm going to die"
I have this mental image for this scene. Very stereotypical horror imo. Where Danny is hiding behind a tree, with a hand over his mouth, and Vlad is a few feet away from him, glowing ominously red through the trees, trying to search for him.
Danny doesn't get away from this unscathed, but he does get away alive. That's all he could ask for. He gets away by getting his ghost half awakened long enough to transform into Phantom and fly to Gotham.
But he gets to Wayne Manor, he gets to Bruce. Or, at least, Alfred answers the door from his insistent pounding. Danny's just in tears and Alfred gets him in the living room, wrapped in a towel, with ice on his swollen leg before he has to step out and alert Bruce.
Bruce already breaks multiple traffic laws on a nightly basis. And that's just with the sheer existence of the batmobile itself, not including the speeding and military artillery attached. He breaks double the amount trying to speed back to the cave and get out of the suit.
Right off the bat: Bruce will know, at least before Dick enters the picture, about danny's powers. He'll figure out something considering the fact that Danny traveled from Wisconsin to New York in a single night. That'll be a bit of complicated affair, but I've already got something in mind.
Actually it'll probably be very soon after Danny joins the family, because Bruce tries to offer to fight for custody for Danny - the state Danny was in at arrival is clear enough evidence for a trial. But Danny immediately shuts it down, says it's not going to work and then Vlad will know Danny's with him and he won't be safe. He tells him that Vlad cannot know Danny was with Bruce.
Danny's biggest regret was not telling his parents he was a halfa, and while he doesn't want to tell mister wayne (yet), he does tell him about Vlad being one. He needs to know why Danny can't be seen with Bruce. So he tells him, and Danny's current plan is to just hide out from Vlad until he turns 18. That way, he has no more legal jurisdiction over him. After that? He's not sure.
And to wrap this up, since this has already gotten very long and I can make more posts about this au later; I've thought about it, and I'm going to say that Danny does become a vigilante before Dick enters the scene. He goes by, as you probably guessed; Nightingale. "Gale" for short.
I literally dont know how to continue explaining to people that part of the reason Goku decided to stay dead was because Gohan hated fighting.
He didnt know this until cell. He literally had no idea. Gohan NEVER gave any indication whatsoever. Couple that with the fact Bulma pointed out most of people threatening the Earth during that point in time were all people wanting Goku. The saiyans. Frieza. The androids. Doctor Gero. Cell.
All because of Goku. Its not his fault but his very existence consistently put the Earth in danger. He truly believed Earth would be safer without him and therefore, gohan wouldnt be consistently placed into battle.
Because Goku didnt know gohan hated fighting. But once he knew came the very interwoven nature of these threats he brought making his own son fight because gohan felt he HAD to. Not because he wanted to. For goku, protecting the earth always aligned with his own love for fighting. But gohan fought out of necessity, out of the very idea that they couldnt afford to do it without him. He has this power he didnt ask for so he must use it right? Because it would be selfish if he didnt.
But goku... goku thought gohan was like him. Gohan WANTED to return to help fight vegeta. He WANTED to go to namek. He WANTED to stay and fight after piccolo almost died to frieza. Goku didnt see gohan train that first year. Didnt witness what it took to make gohan a fighter. All he saw was his son who now was strong and wanted to join the fight like his dad. And he knows gohan is more powerful than them, knows he can stop cell, FELT IT. Gohan has to defeat cell because no one else can. So he thinks if gohan gets angry enough fighting cell, itll be the answer. Because thats how its always been for goku. And in thirty seconds piccolo makes him realize he's wrong. He doesnt argue back, he listens and concedes and realizes that piccolo is right. And suddenly goku wants to abandon his plan and stop the fight. He made a mistake. He intends to get gohan out. And in the end, he still ended up being right, but it doesnt change what goku now knows. Gohan isnt like him and he doesnt enjoy fighting.
Goku would have NEVER made gohan fight if he thought he didnt want to. You know this whenever adult gohan gets involved in a fight and goku apologizes that he had to. Or when someone suggests gohan for a battle and goku is like nah he's "out of practice," even when they have time FOR PRACTICE. He never wants to force gohan into a situation like cell again. Because cell was a mistake and goku has learned from it. So he never asks Gohan to fight anymore. If Gohan wants in then of course he's in. But he wants his son to be able to choose that. He wants gohan to be HAPPY and if thats not fighting then thats perfectly alright with goku.
So it wasnt just about keeping the earth safe. Or his friends. It was knowing that in the safety of gokus absence, gohan wouldnt have to fight either. There would be less threats, less chances of his son being forced into battle. And sure he also trusted that gohan and the others could keep the earth safe if they had to, but he was banking on the threat level significantly decreasing instead.
And decrease it did. They had seven whole years of peace. Not a single threat. Meanwhile from the moment Raditz shows up to gokus death to cell, it all takes place within the span of FIVE YEARS. The longest they went without a threat was the three year gap spent training for the androids. And they spent every waking moment knowing they were coming.
And then if you look at trunks future... majority of the human population being wiped out by the androids. Majority of gokus friends. His son. All dead. Because of him. Because he defeated the red ribbon army when he was a child. And that very easily could have been their future as well. So Goku does his job in preventing that. He saves all of them. And if hes the only one who ends up dead, well... it doesnt matter. Because they aren't. And he intends to keep it that way. So he stays in otherworld, to keep them safe and to give his son a future that he can choose. If Gohan has to fight, then he can. But at least his father wouldnt be the one bringing the threats to his door.
Forcing you all to LOOK AT JONATHAN because he's my specialist boy in the whole world. He made his little brother a mixtape after they found him! His little brother who's his BEST FRIEND by the way IF YOU EVEN CARE. And he's caring and compassionate and loyal. He can't shoot anything with a bullet but he's a whiz with a camera. His favorite color is GREEN. (canon to me) He has a mixtape titled 'Jay's kickass mix'. 'JAY'S KICKASS MIX!!!!. He drove his ugly rusted muscle car until it couldn't drive anymore. He puts everyone else's needs about his own! Selfless King! He's an anxious little mess (he gets it's from his mommy) but he's TOUGH. BUT ABOVE ALL HE'S GENTLE. All the crap he's had to go through and he's such a softy. How do people NOT love him???
Jonathan, sweetie, they could NEVER make me hate you.
Little Zuko and little Azula love Lu Ten.
They love Lu Ten so much, they successfully smuggled themselves into Lu Ten's baggage when Lu Ten left to go fight.
Lu Ten, meanwhile, finds out that his little cousins snuck along for the ride way too late.
He knows they're gonna lose the fight.
He isn't about to let a couple of little kids die like that, murdered by Ba Sing Se soldiers too hyped up by war.
He may have been prepared to put his own life on the line, but he's not sacrificing Zuko or Azula's. But he also knows that if he flees the field with them, then Ozai will absolutely use that as an excuse to "punish" his own children.
Lu Ten does not want to know what that punishment entails. He is, in fact, more terrified by whatever it may be than the literal war raging outside his tent.
So.
So.
He swallows his pride for his country, his love for his father, and his dreams of being a successful general.
sudden yearning for time travelling teen jiang fengmian lands at lotus pier fic that winds up being about a perfectly nice kid having a varying series of "oh no. i don't like that. that's a lot" reactions.